Time To Get Up! - Pastor Destiny Deas

Welcome to SC Church Podcast! We’re so glad you could join us. Today Pastor Destiny Deas shared with us her message:

“Time To Get Up!"

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Can we just take a second and just thank God? If you feel comfortable, would you just lift your hands? Father, I just thank you that you're in this place. Lord, I thank you that every bit of this is holy to you. Celebrating our kids, taking a moment to be generous. Every single bit of it is holy to you. And so, Father, I pray that right now that we would focus in on your word and that we would allow it to transform us from the inside out. Father, please do not let these people just hear the words that come from my mouth, but let them hear the words that come from your heart. Lord, I know there's so many things that would distract us and would pull us to what comes next. But I pray for this moment that you would allow us to fully focus on what you have to speak to each and every one of us. I thank you that you are a God that's big enough to lay a table where everybody gets exactly what they need. And so, Father, we we thank you, we thank you for this opportunity to listen to what your word says and then to apply it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, you can be seated. For those of you who don't know me, um, I my name is Destiny D's, and I am Denny Rodney's oldest sister. I just want to bring that up. I am the oldest of the tribe, and um, this is the house that I grew up in. Um, I have five uh children, if if you don't know, I have five children, and uh my oldest is 15, and then they they kind of go down from there 15, 12, soon to be 10, 7. And then I have a four-year-old who is turning five years old, and his name is Coda, and um, he is not that's not short for anything, that's actually his name. People are very confused. It's just coda, that's all it is. We spell it with a K, but in music, Coda means something tacked on to the end, and that's what he is. He is tacked on to the end. And um, coda, I and I have problems, and let me explain to you why. It's because he is the um he is he is his father. Exactly, his father. And and like his father, he believes that sleep is a waste of time because you're not getting any better while you're sleeping. And I don't feel that way. I actually really very much enjoy sleeping. In fact, sleeping is a is something that I like aspire to. I wake up in the morning and I go, man, I'm gonna get to come back and do this again. This is great. And and he does not he does not agree with me. And so Coda likes to get up at the crack of dawn and to come into my room and get as close to my face as possible and say, It's wake up time. And I'm like, No, it is not, and then he points to the window where there is a glimmer of light, and he says, the sun is up, we should be too. It's wake up time, and then I bribe him by sending him to the TV, but that's okay, you can pray for my parenting later. But today, I feel like Coda has something to say to all of us. It's wake up time, it's time to get up because God has a mission for you. God has a mission for you. Turn to your friend and say, it's time to get up. Throughout the Bible, whenever God has a mission for a group of people or for a person, it always starts with movement, it always starts with action. And he rarely gives them all of the details. Have you noticed that? He'll just say, do this, but he doesn't tell them exactly every move to make. And when God is getting ready to move his people forward, he doesn't always give us the details, but he asks someone to get up and to do something. Abraham, get up and go to the land I will show you. That's really specific. Jacob, get up and go back to the land of your father, Moses, get up and go and release my people. The disciples, get up and go into all the world. All of these heroes, and if you don't know their stories, you can read them later. I don't know if you know, but you are allowed to read your Bible at home. God's always demanding movement. He's demanding movement. And this place of calling without complete care clarity is where I think that a lot of us may be today because I think it's just part of following Jesus. I think it's just part of the faith journey. The last few years have trained many people to kind of just stay guarded, to stay anxious, to manage disappointment. And there are some who I would suspect didn't fall away from faith, but just learn to crouch down inside of it. And this is my word to you: it is time to get up. It's time to get up because at its core, Christianity is not a philosophy, it's not a moral system, it's not advice for better living. Christianity begins with a dead man getting up. It's supernatural to its core. And one of the most supernatural moments happened right before Jesus would be crucified on a cross for our sins. And it's found in Mark chapter 9, starting in verse 2. Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up on a high mountain where they were all alone. There he transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it's good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He did not know what to say. They were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud. This is my son whom I love. Listen to him. Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. So Jesus takes his core three two disciples to this mountain, and there he transfigures. He starts to glow, he starts to have this like heavenly body. And then Elijah, a prophet from the Hebrew Bible, and Moses, the originator of the law of God, show up and start to talk with him, and Peter can't keep his mouth shut. Anybody have a friend like that? Just the worse that it gets, the more that they talk, the more awkward it is, the more that they just like fill the silence. That's what's happening here. Peter is scared to death. And instead of just being quiet like James and John, he's like, oh, this is great. This is really great. Uh we totally should be here, right? We should be here. In fact, I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna build three temples. One for you, Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. It's gonna be great. Temples for everybody. And then God speaks from this cloud and he says, Hey, listen to Jesus, and then poof, there's only one left. What a crazy, miraculous moment. But my question for us is why Moses and Elijah? Why Moses and Elijah? Were they just representations of the law and the prophets that Jesus had come to fulfill? Were they just so superhuman and so perfect? And you know, some people have said it's because they didn't really die. You know, Moses was buried by God up on the mountain, and Elijah like went off in chariots of fire, so they were coming down to kind of like finish the full circle. I think there's something more going on here. Moses, the great leader of God's people in the Hebrew scriptures, was used by God to move them from slavery to freedom, from being slaves in a foreign nation to becoming their own nation. He was a deliverer and a man that spoke directly with Almighty God in a time that that was not only rare, it was almost unheard of. Yet Moses doesn't begin the way I think that we would think, as a confident leader. He began as a man who failed publicly, ran for his life, and settled in obscurity. He was born a slave, he was raised in Pharaoh's household, and yet he was aware that his people, his people were slaves right outside the palace window. And so one day he feels this call and he's like, I am gonna do something about it. And he stands up for his people and he kills one of the Egyptians and he hides the guy's body, and then he sees two of his people fighting, and he goes to try to tell them, hey, we can't fight each other, we have to fight the Egyptians, and they turn on him and say, What are you gonna kill us? Like you did the Egyptian. Realizing that he was found out, he fled. He ran, he was disappointed, he was rejected, and we find him on the backside of the desert taking care of somebody else's sheep. By the time that God calls him again, he is 40 years removed from the moment that he thought his life mattered. And then boom, God interrupts Moses' ordinary life. He's just keeping sheep, and there were always burning bushes, it was the desert. But suddenly he sees a burning bush that's a little different than what he had seen before, because instead of it just being a burning bush that's being consumed, he can tell that the bush itself is not being burnt up. And he walks up, and God tells him, Hey, that thing that was in your heart 40 years ago, that's what I'm calling you to go back and to do. Go to Egypt and demand the freedom of your people. Yes, those people that rejected you. Yes, that place that disappointed you. God speaks before Moses is ready. He doesn't erase Moses' past, instead, he repurposes it. And that fire, it's not just an emotional moment, it's a moment of calling. God is telling a disappointed man in the desert not to feel better or to get a little bit more confidence, but get up and move towards your mission. And the first step, hear me, friends, for you and for me and for anyone who wants to live life on mission, is not towards self-confidence, but rather towards obedience. What is it that God has already asked you to do? The pattern is simple and yet it's not easy. Get up, follow Jesus again. Get up, follow Jesus again, but you don't know the rejection I've faced. Get up, follow Jesus again, but you don't know how disappointed I am. Get up, follow Jesus again. Moses goes to Egypt and he faces his past and he faces his people, and God does amazing things, and God's people are on their way out of slavery. And not only are they on their way out of slavery, but God has ensured that they're leaving rich, like they're taking all the good stuff, and they're in this caravan out of Egypt when Pharaoh changes his mind and sends the army after them, and they are stuck between an army and the water of the Red Sea. And once again, God demands that Moses take action. He says, Step towards the water and raise your staff. Step towards the water and raise your staff. And so Moses steps towards the water, he raises his staff, and the waters part, and the day is saved. But I what I want us to see is that the obstacle did not move, the waters did not part because Moses thought about it, because he dreamed about it, because he wrote a 20-page paper about it. It moved because he moved in obedience towards God's calling. And so many times I find myself waiting on the obstacle to move, waiting on the water to part before I take action when I know what God has asked me to do is to take a step forward into the mission that He's called me to. See in scripture, the water never moves before obedience, it only moves after. Now, Moses' law, we know, didn't transform God's people, and the people rebelled. So God sent prophets to speak truth and to convict his people. Moses shows us how God forms the people, but Elijah shows us what God does when his people forget who he is. The people of God were worshiping idols, and so God sent another insider-outsider. Elijah the Tishbite. That's like a full name, right? His name actually means Yahweh is my God, which was quite a statement in his time, because Yahweh was not the only God of his people. His regional indicator of being a Tishbite is obscure. It's rugged, it's marginal, it's rural, it's certainly not the center of power. And guess what? He has no genealogy, no legacy, no idea of where he comes from in the scriptures. He is completely uncredentialed and unimpressive by any kind of social standard, but he has a word from God. See, Elijah proves that the story isn't about religious elites. God works through unlikely people, and faithfulness doesn't require visibility and it doesn't require validation. Elijah wasn't famous and he wasn't polished. All he was, friends, is what God asks from you and from me. He was available, and God uses him once again to do miracles of water and fire. He prays, and the heavens are shut up, and there's a drought across the land. And then he prays again, and the water flows, rain comes back to the land. Elijah calls down fire from heaven, not one time, but three different times during his ministry. And in the midst of this, after the first time, he calls down fire from heaven onto a mountain after one of his greatest victories, where he kills hundreds of the enemies of the one true God. We find him like Moses hiding in a desert. He completely crashes. But this time, hear me. It's not an invitation to do a task or carry out a mission. Instead, he tells him, get up and eat, drink, and then go back to sleep. And then he tells him, get up, because the journey that is still ahead is too much for you alone. See, in that moment, Elijah didn't need a pep talk. He didn't need somebody to call him out. He didn't need another six-part seminar. Instead, he needed strength. God didn't shame him, God fed him, and God gave him the strength that he needed for a journey that he was never meant to take alone. See, this journey was going to be important because God would reveal himself during that journey in a way that he had only revealed himself to Moses before, in a one-to-one kind of way that would not happen again until we got to see the Son of God face to face. And hear me, some of Elijah's most important and most powerful and most meaningful ministry moments did not come before the breakdown, but after, after the burnout. And most importantly, after the decision to get up and follow God into a new season of obedience and revelation. Sometimes we find ourselves weak, not because we have lacked faith, but because we have poured ourselves out fully. And God's word isn't try harder, it's get up. I still have strength for the mission that is ahead. God's word to Moses was get up. God's word to Elijah was get up. And God's word to you and to me is get up. Ephesians 5:14 says it this way: get up, sleeper, arise from the dead, and the Messiah will shine on you. You know, when I read this, I just figured that it was another call to salvation. I thought, well, surely this is written to unbelievers, but when you look at the context, it's actually written to believers. This isn't about heaven or hell or salvation. It's about living numb to a living God. And I have found throughout my life that I can believe in resurrection and still live like I'm asleep. I can believe that I serve a living God and pray like he's dead and worry like he's in the grave. See, we serve a supernatural God. He sends fire, he sends floods, he heals, he restores, he empowers ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And if we remove the supernatural from the center of our faith, we do not get a safer faith. Instead, we get a weaker one because it does not make sense without it. And so we come back to our original story. Centuries later, Moses and Elijah show up on a mountain, and they're changed into a different form. The only two in the Bible, the only two who did miracles of fire and water, the only two who saw God do miracles of fire and water, standing with the one who can walk on water, calm storms, and promised a fire that would not fall on a mountaintop or guide his people through a desert, but rather a fire that would fall on his people themselves and transform them into living burning bushes that would enter into the deserts of this world and call the lost back home. See, Moses shows us a God who delivers, and Elijah shows us a God who revives, but Jesus shows us a God who became us to save us. And we know that in Acts chapter 2, the fire that He promised came, and they were waiting up in the upper room, not knowing what they were waiting on, when suddenly there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind that filled the entire space, and it appeared on their heads, flames of fire, and they began to speak in languages that were not their own. They were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of fire, and the power of water, and they were empowered to live the new that Jesus died to give us. Here's what I want you to know. You are the cumulation of the entire book. The previous location of the power that could manipulate water and coal down fire was in the law and the prophets, was in Moses and Elijah. But that day on the transfiguration, there was a moment where they said, we don't have to show up anymore. Because after what you're gonna do at Calvary, there will be a new location for this power. There will be a new location for the mission. And the ones who go out to the ends of the earth will not just be a chosen few, but it will be everyone who calls on your name. It's the baptism. It is through water and fire. Water baptism. It's an act of surrender. My old life does not get the final word on my future. I am admitting that I cannot save myself. It's a public identification with the mission of Christ. See, the word baptism actually means to be submerged in a liquid to the point that it changes the state of the thing that has been submerged. So when you think about water baptism, it's less like washing your vegetables and more like pickling cucumbers. Something has happened in the baptism. Something has happened in the submersion. Something has happened. And when we walk with obedience into the baptism of water, there is something that happens. Some of you need to get baptized. A lot has happened since then. You may need to get baptized again on this side of your new season of obedience, on this side of your repentance, on this side of your commitment to a new life. And guess what? You may have shown up today and said, I didn't know they were having baptisms. I'm not ready. I was talking to a lady, um, I actually preached this message last week in Wisconsin, and we were talking to a lady, and this is what she said. She said, I got spontaneously baptized because I realized that I needed to get into obedience with what Jesus has said and the way that He wants to be followed, but they didn't have any stuff. And so I just got baptized in my church clothes. And she said, and I walked out and I drove home sopping wet. And she said that was the greatest drive of my life because I was not gonna let anything stand in the way of me saying yes to what Jesus has asked me to do. They got t-shirts and towels. You don't even have to be sobbing. In a moment, I'm gonna release you. And there's some people who have planned to be baptized, but I believe that there are others of you who are gonna suddenly understand the significance of just saying yes to the mission and come out and play. And then there's the baptism of fire. Oh man. If you didn't know you came to a Pentecostal church, see, fire baptism is where obedience meets encounter, where you become empowered to live the new life. It's a moment of purification, it's a moment of sending. See what happened between Acts chapter 1 and Acts chapter 2 is that the story changed. In Acts chapter 1, this is where we find the disciples. Jesus has died, which was very offscript for the Messiah, not at all what they had planned. See, the Messiah was supposed to come and kick out the Romans. That was the plan. And instead, Messiah came and Romans killed them. Not what was supposed to happen. But good news, he rose from the dead. And so you can almost hear it in Acts chapter 1, where the disciples were like, hey, Jesus, listen, um, totally took us off guard with that whole death thing. Glad you're back. That was great. Now we're even more convinced you're Messiah. It's awesome. But um, hey, listen, uh, can we get back to what we had planned for you to do for us? Okay, this is what the scripture actually says. It says that the disciples were with him and they kept asking him, When are you going to restore our kingdom? And Jesus is so nice. He's like, Well, no one knows the days and the times. But you go and wait. In other words, it was like a very southern way of saying, that's none of your business, but I have an assignment for you. And then the Holy Spirit falls, and they're filled with this same power. The power that raised Jesus from the dead. They're filled with that same power. And suddenly Peter stands up and he doesn't talk about an unfinished work, he talks about a finished work. He doesn't talk about their kingdom, he talks about the kingdom of God that is already come. Suddenly the story shifts. And sometimes we can find in our life that we are stuck in a story that can only change by a revelation from the Holy Spirit, by that baptism of fire. See, water deals with our pat deals with our past, but fire prepares us for our future. Anxiety keeps us stuck in the future. Regret keeps us stuck in the past, but the baptisms of water and fire anchor us in what God has already declared. Oh friends, a water baptism, a baptism in the Holy Spirit, a baptism in fire will not mean that you won't struggle anymore. I do not have that kind of news to give you. But what it will mean is that your struggle no longer has to define you. That you have a power inside of you to get up, follow Jesus again. That when you have a disappointing day, you will have that power that says, get up, follow Jesus again. That when you have that day where you feel rejected by everybody around you, you'll have that power that says, I have already named you and I have already claimed you. And it does not matter what they say about you. Instead, all you have to do is obey me, and today get up and follow me again. It's time to get up. You may feel like an outsider. Good news, God uses those. You may feel unqualified. Good news, God uses those kinds of people. You may feel abandoned, rejected, or just like you don't fit. Good news, God uses those kinds of people. The only thing He asks us to be is obedient and available. So, my question for you is the question that I've been asking myself: are you willing to get up from the sleep of apathy and awaken once again to the reality of a living God who still has a mission for us? The mission is still there, the harvest is still ripe, the problems are still large, and his power is still more than enough. Will you stand with me all over this place? Would you bow your heads? I'm gonna go ahead and dismiss those who are getting ready to get baptized. I think you can go right out that door. Is that right? Right out here. This is what I want to say. If you've already prepared to do this, this is your exit moment. But there are some of you in this room, and you know when I started talking about water baptism, you know in your heart that today is your day. It's time for you to say yes. Well, I didn't bring all my stuff. It's okay. They've got some stuff out there, and that drive back home, that's gonna be a good drive. Knowing that you just decided to say yes anyway. So I don't want you to hesitate. If that's you today, if you say, I'm ready, I'm ready to say yes. Maybe you're even saying yes to Jesus. Guess saying yes to Jesus and immediately being baptized, wow, that is a beautiful moment. You can go right out these doors, and those people will sign you up, they'll get you a towel, and they'll take care of you. Now is your moment. If you're in this room and you say, Destiny, I don't want to live like God's dead. I'm not talking about being unfaithful, I'm not talking about missing church, I'm talking about crouching down in our faith instead of allowing the baptism of fire to transform us, the baptism of water to move us forward. If you say, I'm ready, I want to live on mission every day for the rest of my life. I'm not gonna ask you to come down. I just want to pray for you. If you say, Destiny, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm committing to get up, follow Jesus again. Would you just raise your hand and I just want to pray for you? Father, you see the hands that are raised. Lord, I pray that you would do what only you can do in the name of Jesus. God, I pray for those who've raised their hands and honestly, they've been in a season of just deep, deep, deep disappointment. They're disappointed in people, they're disappointed in situations, and if they're really honest, they're most disappointed in themselves. Father, I pray that you would right now remind them that they don't even have to go back and deal with all the disappointment they can choose right now to get up and to follow you again. They can choose to just take the next step of obedience. Father, for those who who feel stuck, I I pray that they would not be paralyzed by not knowing all of the details. God, I thank you that we don't we don't know the details, we don't know all the different ways, we do we don't know every turn of the journey, but what we do know is that you will be with us every step of the way. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. You can put your hands down if you say destiny, I want to live in that power of the fire baptism, and I want you to pray for me. In just a moment, we're gonna have the water baptisms, and that's gonna be such a beautiful moment of celebration. But if you say, Destiny, I I I need that re-baptism in the fire. I believe God can do that for you right where you are. Would you just lift both of your hands? You need a rebaptism in the fire. Father, you see the people or a baptism for the first time. You see the people who right now are reaching for you and they're saying, I need that baptism of fire. Lord, I thank you that when you fell in that upper realm, there was no protocol. There was nothing that anybody said, you just fell. And so, Father, I pray right now that you would do what only you could do, and that your spirit, that your spirit would meet these people exactly where they are, and that it would be a moment for them, not just in this room, but when they go home and all throughout the day, knowing that that fire is changing their story. Lord, for those who've lived in a story of not enough, God, I thank you that you're changing it to a story of more than enough. For those who've lived in a story of things will never change. God, I thank you that you are showing them that there is a new future and a new hope. Lord, fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your spirit so that we can carry the baptism of water and fire into our Monday and our Tuesday and our Wednesday and our Thursday and our Friday into our homes into our schools and into our businesses, Lord. Lord, I just thank you so much for all that you've done and all you are going to do. In Jesus' name we pray, in Jesus' name we pray.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Thank you for connecting with us today. The first step to a new life in Christ is receiving the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have never received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, repeat this prayer after me. Jesus, I believe you died on a cross and rose again for me. I ask that you come into my heart and be the Lord of my life. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Whether you committed your life to Jesus for the first time today or are already on your journey of faith, we would love to stay connected with you. Please visit sfchurch.com and follow SC Church on all social media platforms. And remember, the best is yet to come.